Friday, December 8, 2017

So my band, GYROJETS, put out an EP in time for Halloween this year and I wanted to talk about it just a little bit on the old bloogerino. It's called Hallowed Friends and you can listen to it, download it, or buy the CD. Are you still here? Phew, now that those very subtle links are out of the way, I can get down to the heart of the matter, even if, even if you don't love me anymore. I might be misquoting those lyrics.

We started recording this badboy in September and rushed it just a little to have it up on the Bandcamp page on October 30th. Some of these songs will be rerecorded again in the future, especially one of the tracks because we're still writing the song -but I'll get to that momentarily. As usual, my wife LeEtta played the part of our in-house artist and drew some fantastic art for this thing. We told her a few of our ideas and she did her thing. We did the recording ourselves as usual with Sam's drums being squished into a mono channel due to the limitations of my Tascam DP-006. I'm happy with the results but one of these days, we need to get some studio time.

Okay, let's run through the songs! First up is "Laurie Strode", our ode to Miss Strode, as played by Scout Taylor-Compton in Rob Zombie's Halloween II. I probably think about that movie too much. Anything Michael Myers-related makes me happy. We were still writing this one right up until we recorded it. Next up is the instrumental "Why Can't We Be Wraiths?". Sam and I jam a lot just so we can get into that pretentious zone where you mind-meld with your fellow artist. You can't spell artisanal without anal. Wait what? Sam and our pal Ryan Hoge made a bunch of synth sounds that I layered throughout this nearly 8 minute thing.

"Kari Frankenstein" was a birthday present for our bud in our sister band, The Prople. We wrote it the night before her birthday show and then performed it. This was the easiest song to record once we stopped trying to do it all fancy and stuff. You can hear Sam saying, "Yeah, 'cause it's fucking me up..." Then we nailed it the very next take. "We Are [Nearly] Dead" is an unfinished song. Sam wrote the lyrics and does the speaking part. I was flirting with this cool riff for this song forever, then I forgot how to play it. So we made this instead. My guitar is running through a fuzz pedal that my friend Wavley at Eccohollow built for me a while back. The last song is "Gay Werewolves"! I cannibalized some old riffs from a song we don't play anymore and then we wrote this LGBTQ-friendly song. I wrote a line or two while Sam wrote the rest and sings nearly the entire song. This song is so fun to play and hopefully makes everyone feel good. Or hairy.

Well, thanks for reading this and thanks for listening if you clinked those links. I hope you will play "Why Can't We Be Wraiths?" at the next haunted house you build. The secret of GYROJETS is something I will reveal here. It's all a ploy for me to get to hang out with Sam as much as possible. Awww, bless your heart, Richard.

Friday, October 13, 2017

It was 1986, I was 9 years old, I was in the hospital, and it was nighttime. In the morning, surgeons would remove my appendix -a procedure which I would wake up in the middle of and flail my arms around like a lunatic- but for the time being, I was watching television while tucked in my bed. Nurses came in repeatedly to check on me, make sure I wasn't eating or drinking anything, and constantly reminding me that I needed to go to sleep soon. For the life of me, I cannot remember what channel or what show I was watching but it may have been MTV or possibly USA's "Night Flight". Suddenly, they announced that there was a new Friday the 13th film in theaters and began to play a music video with clips from the movie.

The song was "He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" by Alice Cooper. How much I knew of either Cooper or Jason Voorhees at that time was negligible at best. I hadn't yet had my brain happily poisoned with the first or second Friday the 13th films but their time was coming. So for now I just had this rad and wildly catchy song and rather intriguing clips from the fifth sequel of a franchise that so far -due to my young age- had escaped me. The memory of being tucked under a pile of blankets in an ice cold hospital room and seeing these two monsters for the first time is one that I cherish to this day.

About Cin Som

Hey there, I'm Richard of Doomed Moviethon and this is my blog dedicated to horror and cult movies. Horror-tinged television, books, music, comic books, manga and more will also be examined and picked at (and only occasionally violated) right here. Thanks a bunch for stopping by, y'all.